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Reproducing an 1860’s Skating Ensemble

The day before Christmas in 2016 I started a project that I thought would be done in a week. Boy was I wrong! This outfit was done as of Christmas day 2017 minus the matching fur muff.

Since Lydia Ann has pretty much everything I own plus way more; its hard to decide what else to make her. I struggle with adding pieces to her wardrobe I would never wear like fancy sheer garments and what I consider superfluous outwear. I know there are so many variations on outwear but if I personally don’t wear it; I never dress Lydia Ann in it. That’s how I roll. So back to my awful decision making process.

For Christmas 2016 I basically just finished her matching ball gown to my star silk. I was disappointed in myself but for some reason I didn’t have time to make more? I’m really not sure what my excuse was. So the day before Christmas 2016, I started her skating ensemble and like a delusional person thought I could complete it in a week. Yeah right.

Long story short, it took an entire year of working on and off, sourcing supplies and procrastinating. So first I will show you the original ensemble and then my copy.

Here is the link to the MET’s collection listing. The original is made out of silk and fur. I am not sure of what the batting is made from, its either cotton or wool. My money is on wool as this outfit is supposed to keep you warm.

For my copy I used a burgundy silk taffeta quilted with cotton batting to keep the bulk at a minimum. I searched out a few white/off white vintage fur collars to use as trim. I had to find a short hair pelt so the scale would look right. On some projects I don’t worry so much about scale but since I was putting so much effort into this I wanted to go the extra mile. Sourcing the fur took me the longest actually; a half year to be exact. The quilting of all the pieces was done long before that. I didn’t copy the hat from the museum though. I looked through fashion magazines at the time and found images of a toque style hat in velvet with trim. I like the look of the matching hat since this is a very high fashion look. I have not had a chance to finish the matching muff , that is the last piece of this outfit to finish. Sadly since its now warming up I wont be able to do a snow photo shoot with the matching muff until next winter. But that’s fine.

So I guess everyone is ready to see the finished product? I hope so or I’m not really sure what you are doing reading this post.

Now that this ensemble is pretty much done; I’m at a loss as to what big project to do next for Lydia Ann. If you have any ideas, comment and let me know! I can use all the help I can get some days!